This invention relates generally to the material handling art and, more particularly, to an apparatus for accurately positioning a laminated sheet assembly adjacent the take-off end of an assembly line for subsequent removal by a transfer apparatus.
In the mass production of glass sheet products such as automotive windshields for example, the finished product is delivered by a conveyor system to a discharge station for removal and transfer onto a portable carrier or "buck" for storage or packaging. Conventionally, the windshields are advanced one-by-one on a conveyor to a take-off section whereat the windshields are manually removed and stacked on a storage buck. However, in recent years automatic take-off devices provided with pick-up heads have been developed to remove the windshields from the take-off end of the conveyor and transfer the same to another area or buck in a stacked relation, thereby avoiding the enormous cost otherwise incurred by the manual performance of these tasks. In an automated production facility, such devices are programmed to repeatedly position the windshield gripping means in the location time after time in order to pick up the windshields from the conveyor take-off section. This, in turn, necessitates an extremely controlled and precise location of the windshield on the conveyor take-off section for the safe and speedy removal thereof by the pick-up head.